Sure enough, the Reps barely missed a beat in self-rigteously defending their Maverick against the New York Times, which, in the Republican alternative universe, is part of the Liberal Press Conspiracy against good Christian white people. Here's the obnoxious Debra Saunders, who by Republican standards is downright sane, with her take on it: New York Times sullies itself with McCain story San Francisco Chronicle 02/22/08.
Sad to say, these Republican rascals have a point on this one. In fact, the Times' conduct on this one was so obviously bad that it's very tempting to see some elaborate Rovian-style plan behind it all. But just as historians generally underestimate the role of just plain dumb decisions in making the world go like it goes, it's very, very easy to underestimate the dysfunctionality of today's Establishment press.
On that point, Max Brantley at the Arkansas Blog got it right on his early reading of the story (Now we know why Huck fights on 02/20/08):
My initial thoughts: This is 11th-hour garbage. (And Labaton's byline makes it automatically suspect.) ...More along the same lines from David Kurtz, Why Now? TPM 02/21/08 ("The story the Times published has no documentary evidence of the affair."); Greg Sargent, About That Times Story On McCain's Relationship 02/21/08; Michael Scherer, Cliffs Notes for the NY Times' McCain Story Swampland Blog 02/21/08; Matt Yglesias, McCain and Iseman 02/21/08.
PS -- The more I think about this story, the more it ticks me off. It's innuendo, period. Throw out the personal relationship and focus on the business deals and then you have a perfectly acceptable story about McCain preaching one thing and doing another (an old story). When they tell you this story isn't about the sex .... it's about the sex. Which isn't near proved, by the way.
And here's where the "Rovian" effect comes in. The Times opened itself to entirely justifiable criticism for their sloppy reporting of inuendo based on anonymous sources, thus helping to point readers' and TV viewers' attention away from the more substantial issue of how close McCain is to so many industry lobbyists and how much the bold Maverick has been willing to do their bidding.
Joe Conason gives an overview of that dirtied landscape in McCain: Reformer or phony? Salon 02/22/08. (Good story title, too.)
Here's Josh Marshall's take from Oops... TPM 02/22/08 relating to the Maverick's statements at variance with well-documented facts in his statements to the press:
Watching McCain over the last couple days particularly and in general over many years, the guy really has a problem with making blanket and obviously false denials. In fact, the obviousness is often so extreme that it can't be a matter of strategy, at least not in a very thought out sense. In this case [an instance in which the Maverick contradicted a statement he had made in an earlier legal deposition relating to Paxson Communications], he makes a blanket statement and there's a written record of McCain himself contradicting his statement. You'll notice also yesterday he grandly stated that he'd never spoken with the Times about the story. Then about 30 seconds later a reporter brought up the pretty obvious point that, well ... the article discusses McCain's talk with Bill Keller. And of course McCain quickly backtracks, since clearly what he had just said was completely ridiculous. ...Tags: establishment press, mainstream media, mainstream press, mccain
... Needless to say McCain gets tons of money and always has from pretty much all the same special interests that everyone else gets money from.
There's no way of getting around the fact that McCain routinely, almost constantly, issues categorical denials that are demonstrably false. The very volume and clarity of the bogusness of so many of these statements might even be viewed as his best defense.
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